Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chip cover for complete or partial covering of electrical, electronic, optoelectronic and/or electromechanical components of a chip.
Such chip covers protect covered regions of the chip from damage due to mechanical force and environmental conditions.
In the case of chips provided on chip cards, smart cards and the like, the chip covers have heretofore been removable, for example by chemical methods (for example by using fuming HNO.sub.3), so that an accurate analysis of the chip circuit and/or manipulations of the chip circuit can be carried out with relative ease.
The possible carrying out of such analyses and/or manipulations of the chip circuit is undesired, since it leads to the possibility of misuse.
As an example thereof, mention may be made of the chip cards or smart cards which are used in the pay television sector. If a hacker succeeds in analyzing the chip circuit which enables access to a particular television channel, with regard to the position and the function of individual components and/or the routing of the interconnections within the chip and gains the capacity to manipulate them by suitable jumpers or the like, then the hacker can thereby become able to use a fee-paying service for free.
Such possibilities of manipulation are important not only in the pay television sector but also in the case of all types of chips used for access control, and open up innumerable possibilities for misuse, which can lead not only to financial losses but also to a considerable security risk.